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Buttons
Wedgwood - Enlarge image
Buttons
- Place of origin:
Etruria, England (jasper, made)
Birmingham, England (steel, probably, made) - Date:
1785-1800 (made)
- Artist/Maker:
Wedgwood (jasper, maker)
- Materials and Techniques:
Jasperware, mounted in cut steel
- Museum number:
276 to N-1866
- Gallery location:
British Galleries, room 118e, case 1 [Button [1], Button [2], Button [9]]
Ceramics Study Galleries, Britain, room 138, case 13, shelf 7 [Button [3], Button [4], Button [5], Button [6], Button [7], Button [8], Button [10], Button [11], Button [12], Button [13], Button [14]]
Object Type
These buttons are for a man's formal coat. Large buttons became fashionable in the 1780s. By this date they were entirely decorative, as the coat was usually worn open over a matching waistcoat. The waistcoat would have had a set of smaller, matching buttons.
Trading
The Staffordshire potter Josiah Wedgwood (1730-1795) sold small quantities of steel-mounted Jasper medallions in his London showrooms, but the majority were mounted and sold by other manufacturers. According to his catalogue of 1779, the price of cameos with 'several Figures' was 'ten Times less than any other durable Imitations that have ever been made in Europe'.
Materials & Making
Steel was relatively inexpensive, but the labour-intensive facetting on the best cut-steel work made it costly. The cut-steel mounts on Wedgwood's Jasper are often attributed to the great Birmingham industrialist Matthew Boulton (1728-1809), a friend and rival of Wedgwood's. However, Wedgwood also sold Jasper for mounting to others, including Green & Vale of Birmingham and Vernon & Hasselwood of Wolverhampton. Birmingham, Wolverhampton and Woodstock were the chief centres for cut-steel.
